We have a new tenant and were not aware they had a dog. Long story short, we own the building with someone else who brought the tenant in. Since we live there and the other "owner" (I use that term very loosely) does not really contribute his full responsibility, we have taken control so to speak. Anyway, we are willing to work with owning a dog. But we have still not met these people, no clue what she even looks like. I saw her boy friend/fiance or whatever when he brought in some stuff last week. Imagine my surprise when the dog barked late at night last weekend. Anyway, yesterday when I got home, the back door was open and it stunk! I started checking my kids shoes thinking someone hadtracked in something from outside. Then i went on the inside porch and smelled worse. I looked under the door to their porch and there were piles of poop. Gross. I do not know how old this dog is or anything. I figure it is probably a German Shepard based on the bark. I grew up with dogs so I am not a stranger to them. But my question is just how much poop can a dog make if he is left alone during the day? It smelled again this morning but I could not tell if it was as strong as last night. I am willing to give the benefit of doubt since they have been with us a little over a week and yesterday was the first time this smell was there. I did leave them a note that we do need to meet and discuss as well as amend the lease. The other owner has no say so whatsoever as to amending the lease. I do have kids so it is very important that we meet and see the dog. I have requested info about the dog as well, especially age, breed, housebroken. If this is in fact a German Shepard and less than a year, how long would it take to get him housebroken?
Just to add, the other owner knew about the dog but forgot to tell me. We got into a fight last week when he called me and said that I told the woman they could not have any dogs and I was making things diffidult with him. Very long story. We talked about this couple 3 times but he "forgot" about the dog. We have a very poor relationship with him at this point and if I really wanted to I could screw him over and have a judge kick him off the deed. But I don't want to screw his kids. We do have a right to amend the lease. The lease currently says no pets since we knew nothing about it and if we keep it that way and they are not hiding the dog, it is like we accept anything that happens. I already speak to a lawyer regularly about this property since there are owner issues. the amendment will include that the dog must not be let loose in the yard ever, must be cleaned up, must have shots and must be registered within 30 days. The other owner gave me major attitude and I had to fight to hold back any yelling and arguing with him since it is just not worth it.
I guess my question is a bit confusing. I do not know how old the dog is so do wonder if it is a puppy, which would require training. My issue is how long would it take to train and how much mess would the dog make during a days time when the dog owners are at work. As to the property, the other owner moved out a couple of years ago. He does not pay anything toward maintenance or expenses for the bulding. We live in it and totally maintain it (including paying the entire mortgage when we had not tenant for 6 months and 3 months that a tenant did not pay the rent). We have a large yard and we have written into the lease that it is not for tenant use due to previous tenants that abused it. The problem was on the tenants back porch. I am hoping the issue was only one day. Yesterday the smell was gone but I do plan to still speak to them about the dog. When renting, the other owner told us nothing about them or the dog and I think that is unacceptable. We own a larger share of the property as well.
We have an extremely poor relationship with the other owner. Our choices are to amend the lease or tell the tenant to get out--per my lawyer. We are willing to work with them, the problem is we knew nothing at all about the dog. So far he is pretty quiet and they are not super noisy. Just hope we are not facing a nightmare.
I agree with Vicky and would like to add one more suggestion - I would require them to register and license their animal with the city.
Good luck!
Animals can make lots of "messes" and do lots of damage to property. It is nice that you are willing to work with them. Have you asked the other owner of the property if he knew about the dog?? Sometimes people try to "sneak" in the pet not knowing there will be an owner will be right there.
We have a lady in a property of ours that has tried "sneaking" everything you can emagin in... we have forced her to get rid of all by one dog & one cat, but she is still not cleaning up after the 2 animals she has left. We are currently working on evicting her for other issues dealing with her breaching her rental agreement - which is a kinda sore subject in my house.
We normaly charge an extra deposit amount for animals & actually make it a non-refundable deposit, because if you don't clean up the rental property - you can have issues renting it to another person that might have allergies to animals later. I also once had a landlord that charged us an extra $50 a month for the dog we had... we were willing to pay it because we loved the dog. She was housebroken, loved people & we cleaned up after her.
I would double check w/ the co-owner & see if they knew about the dog. If they didn't then you have the right to amend the contract, but if they did know about it - it might be harder to amend the contract. Not that you can't, but double check the local tenant/landlord laws to see if there is anything that prevents it. I do know month to month leases are easier to amend the yearly leases are, but if everyone agrees to the new terms there shouldn't be any issues.
Good luck - hope it all works out for you!
So what's the question? How much poop dogs make? How much do you do a day? If the dog is loose is in the yard while the owners are gone..I think that not cool. I have crate trained my dogs while I am gone in the day. Maybe you can suggest that, otherwise do you share the same yard space? I can't imagine to let the dog poop by the door way. suggest to them to pick it up if the space is shared. I think also you need to have better communication with your business partner. You just can't kick someone off the deed unless you the the partner off.
Depending on the owners' of this dog, how much time they are spending taking it out to do his/her thing outside. If it gets used to going where it is, it won't stop and you certainly don't need that smell. If the dog is young then it is their responsibility to clean up after the dog goes. If they are leaving food down during the day, the dog could go maybe twice a day. Its food should never be left to feed whenever. If nothing else tell them in a nice way that if they were to feed their animal when they get home it will then go to the bathroom outside prior to them going out. If you free feed any dog they normally have to go within a couple of hrs. You can figure out how long they are gone and from there figure how many times this dog is going by being free fed. Even my own dog, I free feed him however I'm at home and he goes to the door at least every 1-2hrs. At night I crate him and in the morning as soon as he gets up, I take him out and he does his thing. I'm sure I would walk into an awful mess if I wasn't home. In this case though he would not be free fed. Water yes, food "no". Make sure you ask them this question when speaking, are you free feeding or just once in a day. You will then get your answer. They should be cleaning the mess prior to leaving in the morning anyways. I wish you good luck!!
I think it is great you are willing to work with them. I am a dog lover myself but also feel that people need to be responsible regarding their pets and their mess.
You probably already have thought of this but I would make sure the dog is current on vaccines, especially rabies. Also make sure that it has had a negative fecal within the last year as it can harbor parasites that can be contagious to your children. Being on heartworm prevention will help eliminate most of them.
To answer your question they can make quiet a bit. Especially if they are in a crate and smearing it all over the place. They should be house broken by 1, usually by 4 to 6 months. Maybe they just acquired him.
Good luck.
As a former landlord, the fact that they did this without asking you and that they are avoiding you is a sign that things won't be going well in the future. I would contact an attorney about changes to the lease or possibly this could be a violation of the original lease.
We have a German Shepherd ourselves. She is 6 yrs old and is usually very quiet. We had to rent a townhome for 10 months while building our current home when our dog was about a year old. She had been housebroken since she was about 3 or 4 months old. They are smart. With the right training, they will NEVER go inside the house unless neglected.
I am a SAHM, and was able to be home to take our dog out often when she was a puppy and learning/growing. As they age they don't require going as frequently (liken it to potty training with young kids. Some have to go every 2-3 hours to avoid "accidents", but as they grow they can go much longer). The only time there was an "issue" with our dog's mess when we were renting, was when she was ill with a digestive problem for 48 hours (vomiting and diarrhea every 2 hours).
It is possible that the dog is sick or stressed due to the move and needs some time to adjust. Or maybe the dog is on some sort of medication that is affecting it's digestive tract. (again, like kids, when you take medicine it can have side effects). When our dog is sick (not very often) there is a much stronger odor to the poop. Not just more frequent, but it has a "sick" smell to it as well. When she is healthy and well, I never smell it, unless she just went and the wind catches it just right.
She recently had an unexplained illness, started having seizures and was hospitalized. She is home now, but still taking several medications, and her BM's have gone from once a day, to 5 times a day. And it smells more than her "normal" ones.
Another consideration is the kind of food the dog is fed. Lesser quality foods have more "filler" and therefore produce bigger "waste" than higher quality foods. This also affects how many times a day they will defecate.
Perhaps you could ask the dog owner's for a certification from a vet that the dog is healthy and up to date on vaccines and negative for worms, etc? And then if modifying the lease terms, require that they pick up the animal waste daily (or every other day) and dispose of it in a trash bag.
I do not own a dog, but grew up with German Shepherds, who were lovely family pets. We currently rent one side of a duplex and neighbors do own a dog. The agreement is that they clean up. They do not. I keep forgetting to mention it to our landlord (it has been a problem for over 4 years) and he hasn't noticed because I clean the lawn. I'm the one with small children who run all over and get into the dog feces (major health concern!). Our landlord is very fair about pets but can only enforce what he knows about--we had a pet deposit for our cat, and he has a higher one for dogs, so you have animal damage covered. He also updates us about town animal laws for leashing, strays on the property, who to call, etc. We all know what he expects of owners and pets and I need to be better about complaining about my neighbors. Anyway, I would suggest letting everyone who rents from you have copies of any policies regarding pets so they also know what they can fairly expect from everyone else. Even healthy dogs can make kids sick if they are not cleaned up after. I don't know what your property situation is like, but one of our neighbors (there are several duplexes in a row) got permission to put in her own small fenced yard with a pet door so there was a safe and contained space for her dogs when she was at work. That was her own expense because she wanted to make her animals comfortable.
First of all I am not sure your exact question although your description is very clear. As it is it seems as though you are willing to keep the dog with your addendum, you are having problems with the other owner and you have a lease currently that says no dogs. So put that before everything else. It says no dogs. Period. That is in the lease. So, bypassing the other owner you can leave the note for these people under their door and tell them what the lease says but you stepped in the poopy, you want to meet the dog and you might change the lease a little should Fido be a nice doggy. The other owner is not being violated or betrayed anymore than he did to you when he moved Mr. and Mrs. in with Fido. And he doesn't seem to be very available anyway. I suppose you could send him a copy.
Next, if you do not like Fido you could ask them to take him out.
Finally, since they are violating the lease and if you do not like Fido or them, since Fido is a clear violation of what the lease states, then give them some notice.There are a lot of places that do not accept a dog clearly because of the poopy problems. Dogs definitely can, of course like all creatures can poop all the time and if it is not housebroken with the right care it still has a chance unless it is ill. Good luck.
